Each year IEET (Institute Engineering Education Taiwan) accredits various engineering education programs in Taiwan’s higher educational institutes. This year 138 programs from 45 colleges and universities have been accredited, with TKU’s Depts. Of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, Architecture and Chemical and Materials Engineering included. DWREE and DA have been awarded with a 3 year accreditation, while the DCME a 2 year one. Basically, there are 8 criteria the Accreditation Commission (AC) of IEET evaluate and review applicants with (for details, please check IEET website), and in order to be accredited, programs concerned must pass them all fairly satisfactory. For Materials Engineering, according to Dr. Chang Hsuan, the Chair of the Dept., their strength is the good curriculum design that aims at equipping students with practical knowledge and real life applications. This design, she added, has won top awards in the past two year from Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers. As for Environmental Engineering, Dr. Chen Jyun-cheng, the Chair of the Dept., maintains, they have outstanding graduates, thanks to the relative long history of the dept. and good design of their program.

Dr. Yu Gwo-hsing, the Dean of the College of Engineering, points out that 8 departments and 2 graduate institutes in his college have been accredited so far, with Dept. of Mechanical and Electro-mechanical Engineering trumping other depts. for having won a four year validated accreditation. 6 more programs in his college await reviews scheduled for 2008 academic year. Furthermore, Dr. Yu emphasizes that IEET is working on cross-border accreditation so that Taiwanese students can be certified and work at countries IEET recognizes. IEET will go further to establish “Asian-Pacific Engineer” status which means by obtaining an engineering license in Taiwan, he or she can work in other Asian-Pacific countries IEET associates with. If this is realized, it will be more attractive for engineering programs in Taiwan to recruit bright students.

Attracting good students and maintaining high quality of these students once they get in, Dr. Wu Kwang-tyng, the Chair of the Dept. of Architecture, believes is a major purpose of seeking accreditation from IEET. ( ~Ying-hsueh Hu )